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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Pome College juries. 



j| 3 /f mber - — - — ^ - — — — _ Twelve. 

II- — ■ ^ — - 



I CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



BY 



BISHOP E. A. THOMSON. 



40 



36¥ 



NEW YORK : 
PHILLIPS & H U N T , 

CINCINNATI: 
W A L D E N & S T O W E . 

i88 3 . 



The "Home College Series" will contain one hundred short papers on 
a wide range of subjects — biographical, historical, scientific, literary, domes- 
tic, political, and religious. Indeed, the religious tone will characterize all 
of them. They are written for every body — for all whose leisure is limited, 
but who desire to use the minutes for the enrichment of life. 

These papers contain seeds from the best gardens in all the world of 
human knowledge, and if dropped wisely into good soil, will bring forth 
harvests of beauty and value. 

They are for the young — especially for young people (and older 1 people, 
too. ) who are out of the schools, who are full of li business " and "pares," 
who are in danger of reading nothing, or of reading a sensational literature 
that is worse than nothing. 

One of these papers a week read over and over, thought and talked about 
at ''odd times." will give in one year a vast fund of information, an intel- 
lectual quickening, worth even more than the mere knowledge acquired, a 
taste for solid reading, many hours of simple and wholesome pleasure, and 
ability to talk intelligently and helpfully to one's friends. • 

Pastors may organize "Home College" classes, or " Lyceum Reading 
Unions,'' or " Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circles," and help the 
young people to read and think and talk and live to worthier purpose. 

A young man may have his own little ''college." all by himself, read this 
series of tracts one after the other, (there will soon be one hundred of them 
ready.) examine himself on them by the " Thought-Outline to Help the Mem- 
ory." and thus gain knowledge, and, what is better, a love of knowledge. 

And what a young man may do in this respect, a yonng woman, and both 

old men and old women, may do. ■ . . 

uww'"" 1 A 1 ^ ' - W * " T " N "^C.--,'. ' J. H. Vincent. 

New Yokk, Jan., 1SS8. 1 . 




Copyright. 18S3, by Phillips & Hunt, New York. 



Pom* (SLalkftt ^tx'us. ftumkr Ctomto. 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



" From heaven he came, of heaven he spoke, 

To heaven he led his followers' way ; 
Dark clouds of gloomy night he broke, 

Unveiling an immortal day." 

First. Christ was a popular teacher. He attracted the 
masses. Although he was without folly, without art, without 
depravity, in a world of frivolity and deceit and wickedness ; 
although he appealed to no interest, or passion, or prejudice, 
but set his pupils, as their first lesson, to solve the hard 
problem of poverty, shame, and persecution for the truth; 
yet men in throngs press after him; in the streets and in the 
temple, in the city and in the wilderness, a sea of excited 
human heads dashes about him. Scarce can he eat, or drink, 
or sleep without observation. Now the roof is open above 
him to let down a suffering sinner to his sight, and now a 
vessel is anchored at his feet that he may escape the pressure 
of the crowd that arises around him on the land. Now he 
ascends a mountain that he may look down upon the up- 
turned faces below him, and now he must hide himself in 
the darkness and in the thicket to have an hour of private 
prayer. It is only occasionally that any man can get a 
crowd. No man can hold it long; the multitude, after 
hearing once or twice, lose their curiosity. When Socrates 
taught, a few young men only were enchanted by his voice; 
and when Plato lectured, the people, though they ran to- 
gether to hear him, left him as rapidly as they collected. 
J esus not only gathered the masses from city and watch- 
tower, from palace and cot, but kept them around them till 
he died. At the beginning of his ministry " great multi- 
tudes followed him from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and 



2 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan; 55 
and when he closed it, the multitude spread their garenmts 
and palm branches beneath his triumphant feet, and shouted 
him through the streets of the city. Even while he hangs 
dying on the cross, all Calvary is alive around him. What 
is the secret of his popularity ? 

1. His doctrines are popular. The earth has produced 
many great and good men, but where is one whose words 
are so broad as those of Christ ? The words of an Alexander 
may move armies; the words of Jesus move hearts. The 
words of a Demosthenes may move a nation; the words of 
Jesus move the world. An Aristotle may sway the human 
mind for ages, but he must ere long drop the scepter; 
Christ extends his moral dominion with every revolving 
year. The words of Zoroaster, Confucius, Mohammed, 
abide not the light; the words of Christ make light, and 
make it more and more abound. Scott, Baxter, Byron, can 
move only a particular frame of mind and tone of heart; the 
Saviour reaches the mind in all its frames, the heart in all 
its tones. Every principle he announces has a world-wide 
sweep. Mark his summary of the law: " Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy mind," etc. — a precept so 
narrow as to measure the smallest thought of the smallest 
man; so broad as to compass the mightiest outgoings of the 
largest angel; so perfect as to bind all moral beings to the 
throne of God, and produce eternal and universal harmony 
and happiness and progress. Mark, too, his revelation of 
God: "God so loved the world," etc. Neither the element 
— love; nor the measure — the gift of his " only begotten; " 
nor the purpose — the " whosoever " — can be exceeded even 
in conception. 

2. His style is popular. He that would teach the people 
must condescend to speak as they speak. Christ's style is 
either dialogistic, as when he would confound his foes; or 
allegorical, when he would reprove the captious; or met a- 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



3 



phorical, when he would instruct the inquiring — just the 
style of that great Grecian sage who sought to bring down 
philosophy from heaven to earth. He always teaches. In 
the field and in the highway, in the tumult and in the soli- 
tude, walking and resting, seated at meals or reposing on the 
mountains, he is, concerning things both temporal and eter- 
nal, " a living epistle, known and read of all men." He flies 
through all the scenes and employments and trials of life, 
scattering " apples of gold in pictures of silver." He so 
associates truth with the heavens and the earth as to make 
every thing a memorial of duty, a remembrancer of truth, 
or a reprover of sin. He charges the delighted babe drink- 
ing at the fountain of the breast with the message to its 
happy mother of "Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the 
word of God and keep it." He hath taught the hammer to 
echo to the ear of the laborer in every stroke the admoni- 
tion, " Labor not for the meat that perisheth." Who doth 
not drink water? Well, over every fountain and flood 
Christ hath poured this crystal stream of truth, " Whosoever 
drinketh of this water shall thirst again, but whosoever drink- 
eth of water that I shall give him shall never thirst." Who 
hath not lifted up his eyes to that glorious sun ? Well, in 
his bosom Christ hath set this eternal truth, " I am the light 
of the world." Who hath not felt the night closing around 
him ? Well, Jesus hath written on all its curtains this lu- 
minous line, "The night cometh when no man can work." 
Who hath not had his thoughts carried down to the cham- 
bers of death? Well, there is a voice from the sepulcher, 
" I am the resurrection and the life." Thus Christ touches 
almost every object in nature ; and whatever he touches, 
though it be but a lily or a sparrow, forth leaps a living 
truth. With simplicity Jesus blends majesty. When he 
states a precept, it is as though he had planted a new rock on 
the earth. When he utters a doctrine, it is as though he 
hung a new star in heaven. 



4 CHRIST AS A TEACHER 



3. Jesus is popular in his sympathy. Teachers often make 
distinctions among their pupils. Thus Aristotle confined his 
attention to Alexander because he was Philip's son, and Plato 
left the Academy that he might instruct Dionysius; but 
Christ, like his Father, is " no respecter of persons." He 
looks at man as man; he pierces through parentage and 
rank and wealth and fame and genius and power on the 
one hand, and through shame and toil and ignorance and 
suffering and rags on the other, to the simple spirit; and 
when he finds it, he estimates it by its character and qualifi- 
cations, all that constitutes its manhood — its capacity to be 
angel or devil forever. Whether he treads the highest or 
lowest walks of life, he stands upon the same platform ; 
whether he is surrounded by beggars or princes, he speaks as 
to the same brotherhood. While he pays due attention to 
Nicodemus, and the centurion, and Joseph of Arimathea^ 
he is wont to turn from the palace to the hut, to gather around 
him the children of want and sorrow, to move in light and 
mercy amid blinded minds and bleeding hearts — not because 
of his partiality, but of their necessities. With a godlike 
spirit he stooped to children; with kingly condescension he 
ate at the tables of the poor. Without sympathy with sin, 
and as a shepherd goes into the wilderness to seek and to 
save the lost, he preached to publicans and harlots. Not 
with the rude elbow of stoical indifference, but with the soft 
hand of life-giving love, he touched the coffin and the couch. 
In all this there is a peculiar beauty and propriety. Behold 
poor Bunyan in his prison, as his children have gathered 
around him! to which does his heart most strongly turn? 
to his poor, pale, blind daughter; and now as they bid him 
farewell, see how he grasps the hand of the helpless one, and 
detains her after the rest have gone, and pours over her his 
most earnest, agonizing prayer ! Now, had the Father of 
mercies come down to that family, would he not, also, have 
shown most pity and tenderness to his eyeless one ? Even 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



5 



so when he did come to this world in the person of the 
blessed Jesus. 

Christ was a teacher democratic in the largest and best 
sense — for the people, for all the people, for even the lowest 
of the people, for all the people alike. If he had not been, 
our hearts would have turned from him as being unworthy 
to represent the Being who lighted up that sun, and poured 
the oceans from his urn. 

Second. Christ was a human teacher. His spirit is one of 
meekness and lowliness. Let us beware of mistake here. 
These qualities may be passive; if so, they are infirmities; 
they are incompatible with decision, dignity, energy — with 
highest manhood. In Christ they arc active. His answers 
are soft, because he chooses that the words which might burst 
from his lips like the rebukes of Sinai, should distill as the 
dew of Hermon; his reproofs are gentle, not because they 
want force, but because they enter the heart obliquely; his 
censures are mild, not for lack of power, but for abundance 
of love; his manners are affable, not because he is fearful, or 
unsteady, or dependent, but because, while he holds the keys 
of death and hell, he wills, by bearing injuries, and re- 
proaches, and persecutions, and crucifixion, with a forgiving 
temper, to set revengeful man an example. He is humble, 
not because of his fallibility, but because he would correct 
the arrogance of fallible man; he is modest, not because he 
undervalues his own qualifications, but because man over- 
values his; he was lowly, not because his mind was not set 
on high, but that he might teach us how, while we pour 
heavenly music on the skies, we may dwell upon the ground. 
On suitable occasions, when mild reproof had been neglected, 
he stands up like fire and breathes like famine. In his 
dilemmas there was a caustic that burned scribes and Phari- 
sees to the quick; in his hand there was a scourge before 
which the defilers of the temple fled; in his parables there 
played a hidden lightning which erelong rent every tower 



6 



CHRIST AS A TEA GHEE. 



and place in Jerusalem; yet his prevailing manner how gen- 
tle ! how sweet ! To those who listen to learn he gives, with 
untiring patience, line upon line, and precept upon precept. 
In the wayside he halts to welcome the softest voice of sup- 
plicating sorrow. When he delivers his farewell to his dis- 
ciples, we see how he would "gather his children together 
as a hen gather eth her brood under her wing." When the 
disciple that had denied him with oaths and cursing stood 
trembling in his presence, and he says, " Simon, son of Jonas, 
lovest thou me more than these ? " we learn what that mean- 
eth, " He will not break the bruised reed." Though Christ 
suffered even to the cross, he acted— ah ! how gloriously ! 
He touched all the realms of nature, and they felt him! they 
feel him now. Though he went down to the sepulcher, he 
ascended the skies, and bade his disciples follow him to 
heaven. Though he owned no foot of land, he gave notice 
of his coming conquest of the world. 

The themes of Christ evince his humility. Had he opened 
the veins of silver, or formed the philosopher's stone, or in- 
vented the elixir of mortal life; had he pointed to the com- 
pass, or the steam-engine, or the press; had he exhibited the 
imposing spectacle of history, or lifted the veil from the in- 
visible world, how would warriors, philosophers, and monarchs 
have tracked his footsteps to lay their honors at his feet ! 
True, his mind moves through all nature as though he were 
familiar with its laws, and he not only makes no mistakes 
concerning them, but flashes beams of light across them 
which the intellect of man requires ages of study to appre- 
ciate; but he does not teach science — not because he could 
not, but because man could. Jesus, however, has no jealousy 
of philosophy; he never condemns it; he often, indeed, en- 
tices man to nature, and would have him linger over its 
precious wells. He has no prejudice against books. This 
well, too, is deep, and he leaves it, not because he has no 
bucket, but because he that would draw can make a bucket 



G HEIST AS A TEACHER. 



7 



for himself. He confines his attention to moral knowledge 
— that which the world by wisdom could not know. But 
though his themes are most novel, most elevated, most satis- 
fying, yet the blinded and depraved world concentrates all 
its contempt upon them. 

The pretensions of Christ are humble. True, he says, " I 
and the Father are one;" and yet it required the greatest 
humility to make such a pretension. If a man even profess 
that God has forgiven his sins and made him his child, he is 
branded as an enthusiast; he is watched and hated and, if 
opportunity serve, pierced. How much philosophy has cried 
against Jesus, " He hath a devil and is mad ! " No wonder 
the mob took up stones to stone him; no wonder the San- 
hedrin could not rest till they led him to Calvary. But we 
see not yet the depth of his humility. In the passage quoted 
he speaks of the divinity within him; in others he speaks of 
his humanity as contradistinguished from it. " I can of mine 
own self do nothing;' 5 instead of setting up his human rea- 
son as a god, he brings it to naught. It is not in figurative, 
but in literal language, not merely in one, but in many forms, 
that he ascribes his teaching to another, even the Father. 
" My doctrine is not mine." It is not to God, as the Creator, 
that he ascribes his doctrines, as though he would reminc^ks 
that intellect is of God; but to God, as the Hevealer, that he 
attributes his plans, his doctrine, his very words. He who 
touched all nature as God, who brought life and immortality 
to light, and opened a fountain of mercy for all lands and all 
times, says, Nothing of my wisdom has welled up from my 
own soul — it hath all come down from the Father of lights. 

Third. Christ is an independent teacher. It is a pretty 
speculation of philosophy that every great man is either an 
embodiment of the genius of his own age, or a happy antici- 
pation of the next. According to this theory, the race, like 
the individual, is progressive, and its great minds are the 
marks of its successive stages of advancement. Bacon, for 



8 



example, did but give visibility to the great thoughts that 
had been gathering over the civilized world ages before he 
arose; Newton did but catch the apple which his times had 
already ripened; and Washington was but a manifestation 
of the spirit that had long rushed through the quickened 
veins and breathed through the dilated nostrils of his an- 
cestors. As in the distant spaces of creation a new world is 
the mere condensation of floating nebulae, so in the regions 
of mind. But Jesus stands alone — the embodiment of no 
age, the anticipation of none; though he lived two thousand 
years ago, he is ten thousand years ahead. His character has 
been studied age after age, and the more studied the more 
admired. Who hath ever found a fault in it ? His enemies 
have sought for one as for hid treasures, but in vain. And 
yet, if it were there, it would be as a mountain in a plain — 
conspicuous from all points. His friends have endeavored 
to equal it, but no one has succeeded. It is more than primi- 
tive innocence and goodness. Though visible on earth, its 
place is far in heaven; and to see it, you must look through 
a long colonnade of celestial light. The truth he brings is 
not truth in blossom or in fruit, but in seed; not to adorn 
and wither, but to fall into the soul and germinate. Within 
his simplest rule of man's duty are wrapped up the grandest 
principles of God's government ; by proverbs and examples 
he sets up guide-boards on all the cross-roads in the realm of 
truth; in outline he sketches the map of human knowledge^ 
and by hints points us to the details; his instructions have 
been the subject of study for centuries, and they are still of 
unexhausted interest — an un wasting cruse of oil to feed the 
fires of mind. In a few sentences, such as, " Take no thought 
what ye shall eat and drink ; " " When thou doest thine alms, 
do not sound a trumpet before thee; " " Lay not up for your- 
selves treasures on earth; " " Fear not him which can kill the 
body ; " " Ye are the salt of the earth " — he teaches the great 
principle of the subordination of the body to the soul, of 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



9 



fame and interest to duty, of the present life to that which 
is to come, of individual to general happiness, etc. — princi- 
ples which philosojDhers and poets, kings and prophets, sought 
but never found. We may develop and illustrate and sys- 
tematize Christ's teachings, but never go beyond them. The 
germs of mental philosophy, as well as morals, are all in his 
blessed words. Political economy lies wrapped up in his 
golden rule, and all the forms of charity and improvement 
are but streams from the fountain of his law of love. He 
discloses the true principle of reformation. It is doing little 
to point out sin; it is doing little to punish it; it is even 
doing little to prevent it. You may padlock the fists and 
the feet and the lips, and yet the murder and the lust and 
the lie may be in the man. Back of organs and nerves in 
the intentions and principles of the living agent is vice or 
virtue: hence, to make better men you must make better 
hearts. The Spirit of Christ upon the soul, like the warm 
body of the prophet upon the corpse of the child, wakes up 
the stagnant pulse of spiritual life. In this Christ has no 
exemplar. 

Jesus is independent of instructors. Few great men are 
self-taught; they generally owe their excellences to their op- 
portunities: hence, Philip thanked the gods, not so much 
that they had given him a son as that they had given that 
son an Aristotle. Even the mightiest intellects are very 
dependent. Plato, although he had enjoyed the tutorship of 
Socrates, and the companionship of Xenophon, goes to Cyrene 
to listen to Theodorus; he travels to Megara, and sits down 
day after day with Euclid to enlarge and settle his mathe- 
matical knowledge; he journeys to Italy and Sicily, to quick- 
en his reason and store his memory by conversation with the 
learned — to collect materials of wisdom from primitive 
sources, and inflame his imagination by extraordinary natural 
objects. He compares teacher with teacher, argument with 
argument, system with system, that he may correct his er- 



10 



CHRIST AS A TEACEEE. 



rors and enlarge the compass of his truth. While commun- 
ing with the giants of his own times, he communes also witk 
them of old; he stands with holy awe on the banks of the 
Nile, till he seems to see Orpheus tune his lyre and Solon 
light his lamp. It was otherwise with Christ. He was not 
reared at an Athens : no Porch or Academy or Lyceum 
opened its gates to his footsteps. He was the son of a car- 
penter, in an obscure village of a rural district, in a despised 
province of the world ; and when he read the Scriptures to 
his neighbors, they said, in astonishment, "How knoweth 
this man letters, never having learned ? " He travels not 
beyond the limits of his native land; he is a radiator, not a 
reflector of light. 

He is independent of books; he reads none, he writes 
none, he needs none. He turns every thing around him into 
books; he makes legible the sympathetic ink with which 
every soul is overwritten. He did but touch Nathanael's 
memory, and he brought out the truth, " Thou art the King 
of Israel;" he did but touch Peter's heart, and forth leaped 
the exclamation, " Thou art the Christ; " he did but breathe 
his dying prayer over the centurion that guarded his cross ? 
and out burst into revelation, " Truly, this man was the 
Son of God." It was not Christ's words that startled the Sa- 
maritan woman at the well, but her own biography, which he 
telegraphed to her in an instant; it was not what Christ 
wrote upon the sand, but their own quickened consciences 
which convicted those that stood around the adulteress, and 
made them slink away one by one. How much better this 
unwritten knowledge than all written: it is unerring, adapted 
to each case. It was an experiment of modern times to re- 
store a sick body by transfusing the blood of a healthy one 
into its veins; but it was unsuccessful, because the transfused 
current was not in a proper relation to the vessels which re- 
ceived it; it irritated and bloated the sinking system. Too 
much of our learning is of this kind— -a transfusion of thought 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



11 



into channels unadapted to it, which only vitiates and puffs 
them up. The sick soul, like the sick body, must restore it- 
self; its vital organs must be aroused to vigorous action be- 
fore its streams can be enriched and purified. Of Wesley it 
is said, that he was the quiescence of turbulence; calm him- 
self, he set every thing around him in motion. He learned 
this lesson of his Master, who, wherever he moved, set the 
world on fire. But how did he do it ? by kindling a furnace 
in himself and radiating the heat around him ? Nay ; but 
by touching the heart and quickening the pulses of men; the 
heat which he kindled within them was vital — the more they 
ran from it the more it flamed; it fed upon their thoughts, 
and w^as fanned by their emotions; it was a part of them; 
they feel it now; they will feel it ever. The word of Christ 
resting upon the moral w r orld is like the spirit that brooded 
over chaos — it makes all life and motion, but to each its own 
life and its own motion, while all is beautiful and all is good. 
Some men seem to think that their capacity to teach depends 
upon the number and size of the books which they master. 
Enoch, Noah, Abraham, were teachers — world teachers — be- 
fore there were books. The heavens and the earth are full 
of truth; it shines down and leaps upon all men alike. O, 
that our eyes were couched to see it! The human soul is 
pregnant with truth; let it be but delivered of its burdens, 
and it will have a family of living children, whose cherub 
faces will fill the spiritual house with light. The greatest of 
ancient teachers said that he was but a moral midwife, aid- 
ing the youth to bring forth their ideas and sentiments, and 
to distinguish between the abortive and the living birth. 
Alas! the births were too often dead. The Spirit of Christ 
overshadows the soul as the power of the highest rested 
upon his mother Mary, to quicken the holy things within, 
that they may come forth " sons of God." 

Teachers are too much afraid to try this plan. They seem 
to think that all the truth of the universe has been gathered. 



12 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



Earth has golden mines of knowledge yet unopened in her 
mountains; as to the sea, the known things of her are to the 
unknown as a few sands of her shore to the waters which it 
compasses; and as for the sky, it is ever opening new worlds 
to the eyes of men. And what shall we say of the spirit ? 
Are two souls created alike ? Has not God given to each a 
peculiar power and a peculiar treasure ? Who shall describe 
the endless variety of beauties which Jesus may open in his 
gardens of grace and glory ? Through the demonstrations 
of infinite wisdom and power the thinking soul may always 
find fresh paths. 

We in this land should be the last to complain of barren- 
ness of mind; for the new world is around us. Alas ! alas! 
we are thrashing over and over again the old world's dry 
straw, instead of thrusting the sickle into the new world's 
green and waving harvest. These cloud-clapped hills are 
strewn all over with legends ready to be bound into the 
bundles of Homeric odes and epics. These venerable woods 
stand thick with God's own thoughts; they leap by us in 
every deer that crosses our path, and fall upon us in every 
descending leaf. New forms of human love, and sympathy, 
and sin, and suffering, look out from those cabin windows 
and burning brush-heaps, from yonder canebrakes and the 
far-off wigwams. We have book teachers enough. O, for 
more bookless ones! 

Jesus is independent of human reason. This is man's 
pride; yet it is a frail instrument, prone to error and swayed 
by passion — of some use in discerning error, of little in dis- 
covering truth. For near six thousand years man sought, by 
dint of reason, to discover the origin, and essence, and laws 
of all things, and all that time he was demonstrating that he 
knew nothing. It is impossible to exceed the absurdity of 
philosophy. Nothing so humbling to the pride of human 
reason as the history of its own achievements. At length 
we have learned to come down from the clouds of specula- 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



13 



tion, and walk the earth as Adam did the garden, waiting 
for the voice of God. We gather truth as a child gathers 
flowers; we compare facts; we group them together; we de- 
duce general principles, and arrange them in systems; and 
we call this science; and so it is — science which God wrote 
for us when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons 
of God shouted for joy. (Similar volumes has he written in 
the soul, and we may study them, and copy, and test our 
copies by the echo of the breast.) Man sought also by reason 
to scaffold himself up to God ; but his labors produced only 
a blasted and confounded Babel. The greatest philosophy 
of ancient times, as the greatest of modern times, was but a 
negative teacher. Socrates was mighty only to the pulling 
down of strongholds of human reason; he was light only 
as he revealed the darkness of the heathen wisdom; he went 
through philosophy as the angel of death did through Egypt. 
As Lord Verulam sent men to nature for natural knowledge 
so Socrates bade man look to God for moral knowledge. 
Jesus comes; he disperses the clouds and darkness which 
were round about God, in nature and in providence and in 
the Old Testament ; he marshals into harmony the stars which 
appeared to cross each other's paths in the skies of truth; he 
opens a path beyond the grave; he lifts the curtain from the 
judgment and the retributions which are to follow. All 
around the horizon of past and future, even outward eternally, 
Jesus floods the mountains with light. And yet he reasons 
not; he speaks not as man, with hesitation, with supposition, 
with argumentation, but with authority — an authority to 
which, while miracles certify, the soul itself responds; for ? 
although his revelations could not be discovered by reason, 
they commend themselves to reason. As face answers to 
face in water, so the truths of Jesus to the heart of man. 
The light which comes millions of miles across the regions 
of space is subject to the same laws as that which issues 
from the candle; so the light which traverses the spaces of 



14 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



revelation from the face of the angel is the same as that 
which shines in the face of the saint. All through the New 
Testament we see the same principles that walk the earth 
walking also the heavens. The Saviour's heaven, indeed, is 
but the maturity of earthly goodness; his hell but the ripen- 
ing of the seeds of sin. Moreover, God has put his witness 
in the breast, and when Jesus hails the soul, that witness 
leaps within as John leaped in the womb of Elizabeth at the 
salutation of Mary. 

Jesus is independent of circumstances. Great men are, to 
a considerable degree, influenced by the circumstances of 
their birth, land, education, and station; like the planets, 
they pursue a path resulting from the centrifugal and cen- 
tripetal moral forces to which they are subjected. Christ 
pursues one which defies all calculation of external influences, 
and of which there is no solution but in the throne of God. 
He takes no council, he yields to no prejudice; he goes 
athwart the prejudices of all men — of the people, who desired 
to make him a king; of the priests, whose ritual he abolished; 
of the Pharisees, whose hypocrisy he exposed; of the Saddu- 
cees, whose infidelity he rebuked; of the Jews, whose spirit- 
ual walls he crushed; of the Gentiles, on whose idols he 
breathed death. He thwarted all philosophy by his resurrec- 
tion of the body, and all passion by curbing all unrighteous- 
ness. He thwarted even the circle of his own disciples, who 
often cried, " This is a hard saying," and many of whom 
went back, and walked no more with him. When he said 
that he must suffer many things and be raised again, one of the 
chief est of his apostles said, in confusion and alarm, " Be it 
far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee." Though 
the multitude rushed around him, they did not sustain him 
any more than the billows of the sea sustain a rock. Not 
only did no party support him — all opposed him. Herod and 
Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, 
combined to plant the cursed cross. Princes decreed, phi- 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



15 



losophers sneered, orators argued, the heathen raged; the 
whole world, in convention, resolved against the holy Child ; 
human nature, in rebellious conclave, determines, rather than 
receive him, to break the bands of divine law, and cast aside 
the cords of moral obligation. But she imagined in vain; the 
Lord had her in derision : Jesus sat on his holy hill above the 
rage, as the ark on Ararat in the subsiding flood. 

In many respects this character is inimitable, but it is a 
sure and perfect guide. Reader, be popular in your views. 
Your notions must be wrong if they are narrow. This uni- 
verse is not to be measured with a two-foot rule. Be popu- 
lar in your style. If you would be a " Will-o'-the-wisp," you 
may appear in darkness ; but if you would be a sun, brush 
the clouds from your face. Be popular in your sympathies; 
think, feel, pray, with your knees upon the round globe. See 
Africa, a continent of dry bones ; Asia, a pyramid of moral 
death; Europe, struggling in the folds of the serpent, and 
the isles of the sea crying for help. If the supineness of 
Athens produced a Philip, shall not the prostration of a 
world produce a Paul ? 

Be humble. Seek not for the knowledge that puff eth up ? 
but for that which edifieth. Never be inflated by success; 
for what hast thou that thou didst not receive ? Be not wise 
in your own conceit. Shall the incarnate God say, I am noth- 
ing; and shall that worm — man — say, I am rich ? Be inde- 
pendent. God made you; lift up your heads among his 
sons. Think for yourselves. If there are books upon the 
shelf, thank God for them; but remember the open leaves of 
creation and the unbound volume of the soul. Dare to speak 
out. When the thoughts burn, let the flames have a flue. 
What fear you? Shall he whose Exemplar died upon the 
cross be afraid of sneers and stripes and blows ? " Strike ? 
but hear me!" cried the great Athenian at the battle of Sa- 
lamis. a Kill, but hear me ! " let the Christian cry at the 
battle of the world. 



16 



CHRIST AS A TEACHER. 



THE SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in 
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these 
last days spoken unto us by his Son. — Heb. i, 1, 2. 

And J esus went about all the cities and villages, teaching 
in their synagogues. — Matt, ix, 35. 

And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people, and was 
moved with compassion toward them, because they were as 
sheep not having a shepherd : and he began to teach them 
many things. — Mark vi, 34. 

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If 
ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed ; 
and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you 
free.— Joh^ viii, 31, 32. 

Then opened he their understanding, that they might un- 
derstand the Scriptures. — Luke xxiv, 45. 

Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light 
of the world : he that f olloweth me shall not walk in dark- 
ness, but shall have the light of life. — John viii, 12. 

We know that thou art a teacher come from God. — John 
iii, 2. 

Never man spake like this man. — J ohn vii, 46. 



CHRIST JkS .A. TEACHER. 

[THOUGHT-OTTTLIJiE TO HELP THE MEMORY.] 

1. The fact of Christ's popularity. . . . What proofs ? 

2. State three particulars in which he was popular? 

3. Characteristics of Christ as a " human" teacher? 

4. In what sense was he an " independent" teacher? 



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